Drops of water for a rainy day

Drops of water for a rainy day
By P M Raghunandan & Satish Shile DH News Service Bangalore:
Rain water harvesting is a small initiative that makes a huge difference. Deccan Herald, in its series Catch Rain, is introducing citizens who have successfully adopted rain water harvesting structures.

It’s a small initiative that makes a huge difference. If you can just take care of rains falling on your rooftop, it will take care of the vexed problem of flooding in Bangalore. And it can also cater to your daily requirement of water.

Yes, it’s rain water harvesting, which is the need of the hour for Bangalore. Especially at a time when the city has been facing acute scarcity of water and heavy flooding of rain water on roads at the same time.



Simplest method

What you need to do is to take some time off your busy schedule, perhaps for a day, spend a small amount to put up pipes around the roof to collect rain water and connect them to a sump.

A filter should be fitted at the point where rain water flows into the sump so that you can collect clean water.

The total cost will be less than Rs 3,000 for a house built on a 30/40 ft site, according to experts.

“This is the simplest rain water harvesting method that almost every independent house owner in Bangalore can adopt. It will not only prevent flooding of roads, but will save lot of money which otherwise would have paid towards monthly water bill to the water board,” says rain water harvesting expert Viswanath Srikantaiah.



Control

If done, the runoff (rain water flowing out from a particular site) will come down to 10 per cent. In other words, 90 per cent of rain water does not flow into the public drain. This will naturally prevent overflowing of drains and flooding of houses in the neighbourhood.

Take Mr Viswanath’s house at 264, 6th main, 6th block, BEL Layout, Vidyaranyapuram, for instance. He doesn’t use BWSSB’s water supply for nearly six months as he stores up to 1 lakh litres of rain water every year through this method.



Luxury

For those who can afford spending more money, Mr Viswanath suggests “well recharging method” also.

This is how it works: A small pit of about 22 feet depth and 3 feet diameter need to be dug inside your compound wall adjacent to the shoulder drain in front of the house.

Build a small obstruction wall in the drain so that rain water is retained to a level. While one end of the pipe should be connected to the well and another at the obstruction wall.

When it rains, the water that is retained by the wall will naturally flow into the well through the pipe. The average cost for this method is then Rs 5,000.

“Though constructing an obstruction wall is not legally permissible, it is necessary for re-charging ground water. BBMP has fortunately not questioned me about the wall that I have constructed in front of the house so far,” Mr Viswanath said.

Recharge facility

He further added: “This serves dual purpose. The water stored in the well will not only be available for personal use but it will recharge the ground water also.”

Mr Viswanath’s house is perhaps a model one as far as harvesting rain water is concerned.

Not a single drop of rain that falls on his rooftop goes waste. He also uses rain water for drinking purpose.